We all procrastinate sometimes. But I think there are two kinds of procrastination—positive and negative. An example of positive procrastination is when you legitimately need (and make the most of) a little extra time to gather your thoughts. Negative procrastination is usually based on flimsy excuses to avoid doing something now. “Production Before Perfection” is my solution to negative procrastination: It’s all about self-talk and encouraging yourself. If you are guilty of negative procrastination, it may mean you are fearful of failure and not confident in your ability to succeed. Sometimes the only way to manage your emotions is to ignore them and keep pushing through to achieve what you need to do: Go as far as you can see, and then you’ll see farther. Talk to yourself. This concept has the power to nip procrastination in the bud. You don’t have to understand all the details between where you are and where you want to go. Encourage yourself, make corrections along the way, and you’ll reach your goal. Go ahead. Time is wasting! Take a look at why people delay, along with ways to short-circuit the damaging behavior in yourself and others. – See more at: http://www.success.com/article/dont-procrastinate%E2%80%94talk-to-yourself#sthash.LavRtSu4.dpuf

Among other things, I had a bunch of things I always wanted to ask them Things like, where were they when the landed on the moon? When Kennedy was shot? How did you overcome your business challenges? What did you fear most as a parent? How did you overcome your heartattack and get back into the workforce? What would you do differently as a parent?

….and many many more things. I wanted to ask them about their school experience more, other relatives, family details, etc.

Then recently I came upon this, and I wanted to share, I think it is something we never thinks about but we should.….

If you have loved ones who you’ve lost or you have people in your life right now who you just admire greatly, who are helping you out, who are influencing you in positive ways, how do you honor people?

In our society, especially in the Western culture it’s so much about giving them gifts, pay increases or sending them stuff.

But I actually want to talk about a different way that you can honor people that a lot of people from our audience who know this story always find meaningful. I think it would be so phenomenal an experience for your family members and for you in the future.

Maybe you know the story and maybe you don’t, but in 2009 on Mother’s Day, my dad was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. He’d been a pretty healthy guy, played racquetball and went bowling all the time, played golf and he was happy and healthy. But he woke up on Mother’s Day and he was walking down the hall of the house and my mom saw him drifting a little bit and said, ”What’s wrong with you?” He said, “I’m out of balance and it hurts here on my side.”

They went to the doctor and the doctor said that’s weird your spleen seems to be enlarged and they did a bunch of tests and found out he had acute myeloid leukemia.

It’s the kind of leukemia you definitely don’t want. You don’t want either, but that one is the one that tends to take people’s lives quickly. Dad went through a couple rounds of chemo and unfortunately they weren’t helping. They wanted to put him on a course of the third treatment but it was clear it wasn’t going to work, that would decimate his body, and he made the choice to go home and be at our house with Hospice care until the disease took him.

So, from diagnosis to death we had 59 days with dad and that was it.

I feel very lucky for those times. I had an amazing relationship with my dad as did my family. I love him so much and it was something that’s taken this many years to shoot a video about, because I used to not be able to control any of my emotions and I didn’t speak about it that much on stages for a long time, because it was such a huge emotional toll.

One thing I was happy about that I was able to do during that time is when we knew it was bad and that we might lose him, I happened to be away traveling… I was teaching a seminar to a few hundred people and he called to let me know the second course of chemo hadn’t worked and they didn’t know how long he would have. They were constantly saying, “You have a week left, a week, ten days, three days.” It just took his body so fast because what happens is the stem cells aren’t creating the white cells correctly and the white cells start hampering the body’s ability to function. They’re mutated with leukemia and it takes over your entire body just that fast.

I didn’t know if I would get to see him again or if I could get out there fast enough, so I asked him, “Dad, can I call you and interview you? I want to ask you some questions and record it.” He was in the hospital and just recovering having gone through the chemo and he said sure. I just didn’t know if I would get there fast enough. I called him back and used a free conference calling line, which you can Google and find that allows you to record. I called him and recorded it.

I asked him 30 questions or so about life and I’ve posted the link to those questions [click here to get the interview guide] and I’ve formatted it in a way where you could ask anyone in your life these questions. It’s just about getting to hear them talk about what’s important in their life.

What did they learn when they were young in adolescence?

How did their mother or father influence them?

What did they learn from their parents?

What did their grandparents want them to carry on?

What do they want you to know after they’re gone?

What do they want your brothers or sisters to know after they’re gone?

What values do they want to teach?

What do they want you to remember when the times are dark?

Just advice from this person that you love.

It was my dad, and he gave unbelievable advice. I would say from everything I own in my life now, this is the most treasured thing I have is this recording of Dad, just him talking about life.

It took me a long time to be able to listen to. If I listen to it, I completely get emotional about it, but at the same time I find it empowering and inspiring and it connects me back to him. It’s meaningful to me, too, because while you’re watching me on video now or listening to me in whatever format, in growing up, my dad, his generation just didn’t have any video. I don’t have that much existing video of my father at all outside a wedding, so this is one of the few remaining recordings I have of him.

It was a two-three hour conversation that really inspired me. One of the things he said in there is the reason I’m shooting this video. I asked him what he wanted his kids to always remember and we were talking a lot about it and he just said a few things, these seven things he was always telling us in some way or another throughout our lives and he was demonstrating. He’d say them, but he kind of strung them together in this thought and I keep returning to it over and over again. His seven legacy statements for us were:

Be yourself

Be honest

Do your best

Take care of your family

Treat people with respect

Be a good citizen

Follow your dreams

Those seven things, which were really his values and who he was in so many ways, and he said a lot of amazing things during the interview, but those things I carry with me and I’ve perpetuated over and over. I’d tell his message to all of my audiences. I’ve shared that on a quote card on my Facebook pagebefore and it literally got 40k likes in a week. I don’t know how many times it’s been shared now, but literally hundreds of thousands of times been seen by millions of people and it stunned me.

It reminded me that one of the best ways that we can honor somebody is to carry forth their values but not just to communicate them, not to just live them or have them, but to share with other people.

Maybe you had a grandparent who inspired you and you should tell people about that grandparent and what they told you about life and how to live a good life.

I think there isn’t a lot of conversation, amazingly, in our culture broadly and at an individual level about what it takes to live a good life.

People don’t talk about that as much anymore. Personal growth in terms of an industry seems to be declining, because now people can just get something for any time and everything is so immediate, less people reading books and that genre, less people engaging it seems like.

I’m blessed to have so much of a wave in this area of personal development with this YouTube show being so successful and my Facebook thing taking off and email list exploding over the past couple years. I can share with you that what makes those things meaningful is trying to share meaningful advice with people, meaningful insights and I think you can do that.

I think there have been people who have inspired you and the more you tell their story and tell people explicitly and directly, this is what they taught me the more we carry forth the legacy of those before us for future generations, the more we become standard bearers of what a good life is because if no one’s talking about it and if no one is communicating values as much anymore, we start to lose that.

And I think what’s happened is generation after generation has failed to hold the line of high standards in humanity.

We’re getting more and more lackadaisical with “anything is okay” and celebrating idiots on television, angry people or the smart bitter comment that jabs at somebody versus talking about what it takes to be a good person.

What does it take to live the ideal life? Obviously I’ve dedicated my life to that. This whole thing is about living your charged life. What would that feel like?One of the things to live a fully charged life is to honor the people in your life. I encourage you to interview them and completely steal my interview form and call someone you love and interview them. I think you’ll be surprised at some of the things you’ll learn and some of the tidbits they’ll give you, you can remind yourself. I carry them around in my wallet. I think about these things because they give a guidepost of behavior everyday to live up to, to live into your highest self; to live into those ideals and values.

There are lots of ways to honor someone. If they’re still with you, sometimes it can be as simple as calling them, taking them out to lunch, sitting them down, looking them directly in the eye and saying,

“I just wanted to spend a few minutes with you sharing how you’ve impacted my life. I just want to spend a few minutes with you telling you why you made such a difference for me. I want to share with you the values and maybe you never told me but I just see them in you, there’s something… Your strength and positivity or, your hope or your belief in me. You might not know it but it carried me through days that I didn’t think I could make it through. What you have told me I’m going to carry forth. What you help me do I’m going to help more people do.”

It’s in that perpetuation of goodness that we hold the line of the best that is in humanity, and I encourage you to do that.

It can be as simple as writing a letter to someone and professing to them, this is why I love you, care for you and admire you.

It can be as simple as shooting a video and sending it to them saying, “Hey, I just wanted you to know the impact that you’re making and I’m going to carry it forward.”

The number one way to honor someone is to carry their voice and values forward everyday through your behavior and explicitly through stories and advice and guidance of other people.

I think that’s the ultimate way to honor people, more than the fanfare of a fancy gift or if you have a great employee and giving them a raise, but to really celebrate somebody’s words and their noble character and what they have to share with other people, that is a magical way to make a difference, to perpetuate the goodness in humanity and to celebrate and honor someone who’s made a difference in your life.

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Like this episode? Please share it with others. Let’s inspire others to live a fully charged life. The interview guide referenced in this video can be downloaded free here.

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( Frey Freyday is simply a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect, smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff….)

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Worry?! Why? …..do you really think something could go “wrong”? Are you not eternal? Have you forgotten how much you’re loved? Don’t you see how far you’ve already come? Could you possibly be in better hands?
Is there not chocolate in every land? The Universe/tut.com

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You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.-Walter Hagen

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When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.-Joyce Meyer

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There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.-Mahatma Gandhi

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Pray, and let God worry.-Martin Luther

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Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.-Dale Carnegie

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It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.-Wayne Dyer

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Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.-Corrie Ten Boom

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Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.-Leo Buscaglia

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Failure is an enigma. You worry about it, and it teaches you something.-James Dyson

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Worrying is like praying for bad things to happen. – Unknown.

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If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.-George Burns

Bonus: Ted Talk

Listening to Bobby McFerrin sing may be hazardous to your preconceptions. Side effects may include unparalleled joy, a new perspective on creativity, rejection of the predictable, and a sudden, irreversible urge to lead a more spontaneous existence.

Please take a moment to watch this. It is well worth the 1 minute 15 seconds……

How to Change the Quality of Your Life

I wanted to give you a quick video from one of my past weekend events where I shared about the power of questions – change the questions you ask yourself and change the direction of your life.

Also, click on this link to see a great clip on the Power of Questions that you can send on to your friends and family! Power of Questions Mini Movie

Remember, it’s not the events of your life that determine how you feel and act but, rather, the meaning you create from your life’s experiences. Learning to ask empowering questions – especially in moments of crisis – is a critical skill that will ultimately shape the meanings you create, and therefore the quality of your life.

Stay Strong and Live with Passion,
-Tony

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The fear of rejection is often more an inside job than truly about other people; it is a maturity and consciousness issue we must finally come to grips with, a decision to stand on our own, accept ourselves, be free. We don’t fear judgement, we fear our own inadequacy or power.

From Brendon Burchard

— Begin Transcript —

I spend all this time teaching people how to share their voice with the world, market their story out about who they are and what they want to accomplish in life. One of the things that really surprised me when I started doing this, almost 10 years ago now, was how many people would come up to me and say:

Brendon, how do you deal with rejection?

These were often adults, which really blew my mind because I was a young man back then. It would be 45, 55 and 65 year old folks saying, Brendon, how do you deal with the rejection? I thought, what do you mean? There would be this insecurity in their voice as they asked that question.

I thought, you’re an adult and still struggling with ideas about rejection?

I think that’s unfortunate and it shows that sometimes people live an unexamined life, that they’re willing to not question themselves. Shouldn’t we have all gotten over and dealt rejection pretty young? High school, college level stuff?

I’m not saying we won’t ever be self-conscious.

Don’t worry you don’t have to give me hate…

emails and comments below, I mean, you can make fun of my shirt, but other than that… I’m not trying to be insensitive I just think that sometimes they don’t understand math and odds.

We think rejection is this thing that happens all the time, so what happens is that so many people guide their life based on this fear that they’re going to be rejected, so they don’t take action and don’t start new things or chase their dreams because they’re worried about what other people are going to think.

They’re going to be rejected and deemed unworthy, unlovable or not adequate in some way or another and you think, that’s so sad, because rejection, the actual form of rejection that shapes people’s identity and hurts them, happens so rarely. If you don’t believe it then that’s an internal fear, not the reality of the universe.

Let me prove this to you with some basic data. I’ve traveled around the globe, well over most of the globe now, and here’s what I find out over and over again when I speak to audiences.

I always do this little simple activity where I say, if you’ve ever been rejected in a way where it hurt, it actually hurt and formed and shaped your identity in a way, it was a significant hurt that you felt and it changed how you felt about yourself and what you might want to accomplish in the world. If you’ve ever felt that before would you raise your hand?Everyone raises their hand.

Then I say if you’ve ever been rejected by, let’s say, three people, who really rejected you in that way that you were shot down, hurt and it changed who you are and what you wanted to accomplish in life. How many times has that ever happened with three people? A bunch of people raise their hands again and I start escalating that number from three, to five to seven, to ten, fifteen, twenty. and thirty.

Here’s what’s amazing. I’ve done this all over the world with audiences with thousands of people in them and here’s the average across all those audiences, all around the world, it doesn’t matter the culture. The average number is about seven.

So anywhere between five and seven, meaning, people say between five and seven people hurt their feelings enough with a real rejection, not one of those, “Well I’m sorry I can’t go out with you I’m washing my hair” stuff. I mean someone who really criticized you and rejected you in a way that it hurt. The average person says five to seven people rejected them like that.

There are some people who have more than that. I’m saying the average is five to seven and yet so many people when I ask, how many of you are so scared of rejection that almost everyone raises their hand.

It’s like wait a second, you’re scared of something that barely ever happens?

The second question I get asked is, how many of you have ever interacted with let’s say, 10 people and when you interacted with those 10 people it went just fine. They were nice to you. They were polite. They were patient or they just didn’t care one way or another. Have you ever met 10 people like that? Everyone raised their hand.

Then I say, how many of you have ever interacted with, met, known or associated with 100 people in your life and those 100 people were fine with you? Everyone raised their hand.

I take that number up to thousands and everyone is still raising their hands, because we’ve all met with, interacted with, known or associated with thousands of people in our lives and most of them could care less, didn’t criticize, were generally supportive.

And so it’s like wait a second.

You’re basing your life and directing yourself based on this fear of rejection that maybes happen on average, for people between five and seven times? But, thousands of people you’ve interacted with are cool with you or at least, let you do your own thing and didn’t criticize it.

It’s like wait, if you realize those numbers and you did the math, like five people versus a thousand. Five people aren’t supportive of you but a thousand were and were fine with you. Think about that math and automatically, statistically, mathematically — five out of a thousand, these are the freaks!They’re the oddities and weirdo’s. They don’t make computational sense over here.

You’re worried about what the tragic minority in that sense, five out of a thousand. You have a thousand people who have your back you could storm these five people.

You have to realize that rejection actually barely ever happens. We fear it because when we were young and it happened, it felt so real and so big, but come on. As we get older we have to gain that greater sense of awareness and maturity that says, “I am my own person. I’m going to be myself regardless.”

Some people say, Brendon, you can’t expect that from people because they have so much fear. It’s like, why does fear get so much credit? People also have so much power. People have so much strength.

People have so much in themselves that it can actually be heroic tendencies if they focus on that as much as they focused on their inadequacies.

So why are we giving everyone a by card and saying it’s okay that you’re still scared of rejection. I don’t think it’s okay.

I think it’s rather, we should say, let’s have a higher ambition for ourselves as human beings to allow ourselves the freedom to be who we are, to genuinely express ourselves.

Yes, will some people criticize it? Absolutely. Some people will criticize this video and go “Oh man, I hate your shirt. Your hair looks bad. You’re really white and what’s your deal?” Everyone is going to say something. So what!

I’m not going to limit my service or message to the world, based on what other people think.

By the way, who are we fearing the most anyway?

Usually the people we fear are the harsh critics. Let’s talk about the harsh critics, who are they?

Most harsh critics, unless they’re paid to be critics, are just jerks, and we really don’t need to listen to them.

But, why are people critical?

Most people are critical for maybe four reasons:

1. Self boasting.
Most critics are braggarts. They like to say, “You’re not good enough. I do a much better job.” Fantastic. Good for you. Go do a better job, out of my vision please.

It’s like, don’t worry about the self boasters and the narcissists, you don’t need to be concerned about them they have nothing to add to the direction in which you’re going in your life.

Focus on your own thing. Don’t worry about the couch critics or apathetic advisors on the sidelines of life. They really have nothing to contribute to you. Unless you’ve asked for constructive feedback, don’t worry about it.

2. Self-Protection.
I think the second reason become critics often is because it’s self protection.

They’re critical of you because they see something outstanding, remarkable or different in you and they’re scared of different, because they’re comfortable in their own thing or it challenges their own beliefs and behaviors seeing you excel.

Seeing you have the boldness, the freedom, the joy, the ambition, the guts, the integrity and the courage to put yourself out there, they’re like, “Oh yeah, who do you think you are?”

They try to knock you down to their level.

Do you need to be concerned about those people? No.

3. Ignorance.
I think the third reason people do it is because sometimes they’re just critical, but they’re critical out of ignorance.

They actually don’t know you. They don’t know what you’re talking about. They don’t know what you’re doing. They don’t know anything about your area of expertise or the thing that you’re trying to share in the world.

So, why be concerned about what somebody who has no knowledge about you or what you’re doing has to say?

4. Protecting You.
The fourth reason people do it is because they actually do want to provide value. They want to give you some direction to protect you and care for you, and they don’t realize that sometimes the way they do that, their tone might be condescending. Maybe the way they do it does hurt you or limit you, but they weren’t trying to be a tyrant to you, they’re just maybe a little unconscious or lack some emotional or social intelligence.

For those people, pity them and ignore the rest of them.

Give some of those people who are trying patience and pity, the other ones, don’t give them patience or the time and attention.

That sounds harsh to say and I’ll be criticized for it, of course, but that’s what I believe so I’m going to say it.

I want you to go say what you feel like with the world.

Go give yourself to the world without concern about what the world thinks about you so much, because if you don’t, if you limit the expression of who you are and what you have to give in the world, based on a couple people who might criticize you, what have you done? You’ve sunken below the lowest common denominator of mankind.

If we all shrunk in our ability to serve because of what some people might think where would we be as humans?

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A great blog about forgiveness, apologizing, bitterness from Brendon Burchard

Nothing is served by being bitter. Nothing is served in a relationship by lording over someone else for a mistake or hurtful act. Nothing ever moves from that. There’s no positive movement in a broken relationship without first forgiveness. Forgive, not to approve of others bad behavior, but to unleash your soul from the hurt and bitterness. Let go of the ego and just forgive somebody, not to justify, not to rationalize, not to approve….just do it for your own mental and spiritual sanity, health and vibrancy. Just let it go. You need nothing more.

I believe that one of the great marks of personal power and spiritual power is the ability to apologize and to forgive.

Often those things are seen, for some weird odd reason, as ‘weak’ things. “Oh well, I don’t want to apologize to her because that will make me look weak.” Or, “I’m not going to forgive him because if I forgive him then that gives him the power.”

People have been thinking about apology and forgiveness in the wrong ways for so long—that’s why we have so many people who are pent up, angry, frustrated, and bitter around the world.

Do you have any bitter critter friends? You know, these people that are just bitter and angry all the time? They’re mad at other people, the injustices of the world, but then when they screw up they can’t even say, “I’m sorry.” Doesn’t that drive you nuts? It’s a lack of congruence, and I think the challenge is that so many people have never really been taught how to think about these things.

Should we apologize to people? Absolutely. If we do something that causes harm or hurts someone’s feelings, even if it wasn’t our intention, even if we think it wasn’t a big deal? Yes. Because guess what?

Apologizing has nothing to do with what we think is a big deal, no matter how smart we are about justifying why someone should not feel that way. “Well she shouldn’t feel that way, so I’m not going to apologize.” It doesn’t matter if you think she should feel that way, if she feels that way, she feels that way.

Because, whatever action you did, whether it deserved to cause that emotion, if she’s having that interaction and feeling, then we ought to say, “I’m really sorry that you’re having that experience, I didn’t intend for that, but I apologize. I want to let you know I want you to be happy. I want you to feel good. I want us to have a good relationship.”

It’s turning that apology into a direct intention, a direct statement that we want things to be better.

You say, “I’m not going to apologize because when I apologize then they really hold me to the ground.” Have you ever apologized to someone and they just won’t accept the apology? They just keep getting meaner and meaner and meaner to you, making you defend yourself, defend yourself, defend yourself?

Don’t play that game. Just say, “You know what, I don’t know what else to say. I’ve totally apologized. I have really nothing else to say about the matter other than I just feel bad. I feel bad that you feel bad. None of us wants to feel bad.”

Don’t let anyone drag you into their emotional drama either. Apologize with sincerity and strength, but do not allow yourself to be drawn into everyone else’s negative emotions. To allow yourself to apologize from a place of knowing you’re doing it with integrity, because you don’t want to cause harm or make anyone feel bad. To do that, but not allow yourself to give over your integrity, to allow someone now to brow beat you into submission, into beating you into a place where you’re emotionally and spiritually completely taxed, where you say I’m not going to apologize anymore.

See, when we apologize we don’t have to give away our power.

It’s coming from a place of real power that allows us to apologize, because when we’re coming from a place of real, raw, emotional and spiritual power, we can apologize because there’s no ego attached to it.

Whatever dance is going to happen after we apologize, we’re not going to be drawn into that dance of drama.

See, part of the reason we don’t want to apologize is because we fear it makes us look wrong, even if we wouldn’t say that or conceptualize that. We feel like, “If I apologize then that means I was wrong.”

What if it has nothing to do with whether or not you were wrong or right, deserved or justified? What if it’s so simple to apologize because it has nothing to do with your ego?

I’ll apologize all day long because me apologizing or pointing out any flaws that I have or any mistakes I’ve made does not diminish me as a person. It grows me as a person. It makes me stronger, more aware and more capable. I want to learn when I mess up, so when someone says you should apologize for that I say, “Okay, I apologize. “ There’s no hook to it for me. I don’t get angry about other people.

“Well, I don’t need to apologize to you, who do you think you are?” Nothing is served from that. I have no ego about these things and it’s so much easier to apologize, because it’s not about you. It’s not about protecting your own mental turf. It’s not about being right.

Most of the frustrations and the anger and bitterness we have to other people is because we feel that we have to be so right and we feel so powerful when we’re right.

It’s like, really?

Just be a spiritual person and be open and allow warmth and love to flow through to you, especially to the people you have hurt.

Let it go. Let go of that need to feel right or justified and your life really does transform. You can literally feel thousands of pounds of baggage releasing from your shoulders the moment you’re spiritually free enough to apologize whenever someone around you has been negatively impacted or took something negative and they felt bad.

Some people just are going to feel bad all the time, so they’ll be asking you for apologies all the time. Your job? Limit your exposure to that person.

You’re like, Brendon, “What if I marry that person.” Don’t blame me I didn’t marry them you married them!

I think you have to have a greater sense of connection with others to realize that if they’re continually offended and continually hurt, to sit them down and say,

“I sense that you were always continually hurt and there is always this thing: I can’t do anything right. So what dialogue would I have to have or what behavior change would I have to have or we have to have in this relationship so that you’re not always hurt? If you’re always going to be hurt, I’m always going to feel bad. And if I’m always going to feel bad and you’re always going to feel bad, where could this relationship ever really go? Let’s have an intentional conversation about what kind of relationship do we really want? Do you and I both want to continue drowning in our drama or do we want to find out a new way we can live and interact together? If we can’t figure out a new way to live and interact together, in which we have true joy, openness, care and compassion and love and fun with each other, then we aren’t doing a good enough job together. Then we have to explore that too.”

And sometimes there are people who just aren’t at the same conscious plain you are—and you don’t say that from a place of ego, you just say it in recognition that they’re still on that plain of hurt and they aren’t ever going to release that plain of hurt.

Maybe you have to be honest with them and have a conversation, maybe they need true therapy. They need true help. Some people truly, cannot resolve their own internal dramas, as much as they try, and you are not a therapist… (maybe you are, I don’t know).

But your job isn’t to be a therapist to your loved ones. Your job is to facilitate that if they need to go get some help, then let them go get some help, and champion that. Don’t create a stigma around it. Let them get some help to resolve their internal dramas that are creating all this negative energy that’s constantly creating bitterness and feuds between the two of you.

That’s your job: “How can I guide this so there’s not as much hurt here.” If you do that well in your relationships you find it so much easier to apologize when you do something.

When someone feels bad around me, I immediately apologize, because I know apology has nothing to do with me. It has to do with their ability and their need to release their bitterness. They’re upset, and if all the need is a simple switch of an apology to release that upset-ness in their life, I want to let them switch that thing all day long.

It’s not about you. It’s about a need they have psychologically to release from something and the apology is the lever for that release.

I’m like, I’ll hand somebody a lever all day long it doesn’t bother me, because it has nothing to do with me. Does that make sense?

If your intentions are pure and your actions are done with true compassion and faith and love in other people, than you’ll find suddenly you don’t have to apologize that much, because your actions are pure and who you are is pure.

You’re doing good things for yourself, first and foremost to have integrity, and then for others, and because you do that, suddenly you don’t make as many mistakes. You don’t hurt people as often, and you just find yourself acting, not in noble ways, but in ways that are true to your real spirit, which is coming from a place of love and compassion anyway.

I think the second part of this in demonstrating real strength is also the ability on your side to forgive.

If someone says, “I’m sorry,” you’re like I get it.

You don’t have to say, “You’re not really sorry,” and until they bleed, you won’t forgive them. You know these people don’t you?

Forgiveness should be as simple as apology for you. Simple.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with you, just like apology might not have anything to do with you. It’s not about ego.

Forgiveness is not something mental that you need to construct in your head, it’s a spiritual discipline.

You know what, there are so many things going on at any given time that could be judged as wrong, as harsh, as terrible, as mean and as vindictive, and what we have to realize is that we could interpret everything that way, everything. If someone cuts you off in traffic you freak out and now you’re going to chase them down and run them off the road, and you won’t forgive them for five days, you’re mad about that guy who cut you off.

You know what you’re carrying? Bitterness and anger. Over a period of years that starts to wear on your face. It starts showing up in your body. It starts to slow you down in your progress in life, because you start thinking people are bad, so you divide yourself from other people. And, because you see other people are as bad then you don’t collaborate as much. You don’t ask for help. You don’t believe in the power of a team to accomplish something, and suddenly you find yourself alone, bitter and alone, because you didn’t have the spiritual wherewithal to forgive.

Forgiving is so simple. It literally is a decision. No justification or cause has to happen, and forgiving does not have to do anything with accepting the other person’s behavior, approving of it, justifying it, rationalizing it or understanding it.

Forgiveness is a personal power saying, I’m not going to be upset. You don’t even have to forgive them. You don’t even have to forgive their actions.. it has nothing to do with them.

Forgiveness has to do with a decision that you’re just going to forgive the weight that you’re carrying around about something that impacted you.

That’s the way to look at it.

It is a spiritual power in just dropping weight of negativity, of negative emotion and energy around you.

I can forgive so fast in my life, not because I’m so wow spiritual, it’s just because I’ve practiced it so many times. I’m constantly like,

“Wow, I’m kind of upset about that. Let me let that go, because it’s not going to serve my life. Let me let that go because if I don’t I can’t sleep tonight. Let me let that go because if I don’t I feel heavy and angry. Let me let that go because when I’m upset or bitter I don’t have a good vision for my future. Let me let that go, because if I carry it I’m going to walk that into my next relationship with someone I love, adore or care. Let me let that go, because nothing is served by being angry.”

Nothing is served by being bitter. Nothing is served in a relationship by Lording over something over someone else’s head. Nothing ever moves from that. There’s no positive movement that comes in a relationship that has been broken without first forgiveness. It has to happen and it has to happen in a place where it’s not about you. Do it just for your spirit.

Let go of the ego and just forgive somebody, not to approve of them, not to justify, not to rationalize. Like I said, just do it for your own mental and spiritual sanity, health and vibrancy. Just let it go. You need nothing more.

Make a decision today that whatever’s bothering you just let it go. Let that challenge of that relationship for now, just let it go and see how that feels. It will lighten the load and will allow you to soar again. It will give you spirit back. It will allow an openness in the life again that never can happen when you’re tugging at all this baggage on your shoulders that you chose to carry. Maybe they threw a piece of baggage at you and you caught it. You caught it and now you’re angry. You simply need to let it go.

I’m not going to carry your stuff anymore. I forgive the situation. I forgive you, only for my own mental sanity. That’s personal power.

That’s how you feel free in life again: From apologizing and allowing forgiveness into your life, you feel free again, and when you feel free again, now life is unbounded. It’s beautiful. The colors return to the sky. The whistle comes back to the work. Any metaphor you need to justify doing this, find it and let it go today.

Apologize when you need to.

Let it go every time, and suddenly you’ll find yourself fully charged.